Search - Opera Highlights Vol. II - Ariodante, Billy Budd, The Fiery Angel, Xerxes, Peter Grimes, Cunning Little Vixen, Giulio Cesare, Eugene Onegin, Ruslan and Lyudmlla on DVD

Opera Highlights, Vol. 2 -- It's Good, and Cheaper that Vol.

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 07/16/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Unfortunately Amazon.com has not listed as of this date the contents of this DVD, so I shall do so here:

All of the arias are staged, taken from full-length DVDs of the operas involved.

Purcell: Fairy Queen - 'O let me weep' - Yvonne Kenny
Handel: Giulio Cesare - 'Piangerò la sorte mis' - Yvonne Kenny
Handel: Ariodante - 'Take your pleasure'- Ann Murray
Handel: Xerxes - 'If you worship the man who has spurned you' - Ann Murray
Glinka: excerpts from 'Ruslan and Lyudmila', Act II - Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Ognovenko, Konstantin Pluzhnikov
Glinka: 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' - Lyudmila's Act IV aria - Anna Netrebko
Tchaikovsky: 'Yevgeny Onegin' - 'No, there could never be another' (Letter Scene) - Orla Boylan
Tchaikovsky: 'Yevgeny Onegin' - 'You wrote me' & 'Can this be the same Tatiana?' - Vladimir Glushchak
Tchaikovsky: 'Yevgeny Onegin' - 'Where, oh where have you gone, golden days of my youth?' (Lensky's aria - 'Koda, koda', or 'Wohin, wohin') and 'Enemies, enemies' - Michael König
Janácek: 'The Cunning Little Vixen' - Forester's Aria (on the wonders of nature) - Thomas Allen
Janácek: 'The Cunning Little Vixen' - Lover's Duet, from Act II - Eva Jenis, Hannah Minutillo
Prokofiev: 'The Fiery Angel' - 'Renata's Confession' - Galina Gorchakova
Britten: 'Peter Grimes' - The aria on the sea wall (Mad Scene) - Philip Langridge
Britten: 'Billy Budd' - 'They'll lash me in a hammock' - Thomas Allen

Conductors include Richard Hickox and Nicholas Kok in the Handel; Charles Mackerras in the Janácek; David Atherton in the Britton; Valery Gergiev in the Glinka and Prokofiev; Gennady Rozhdestvensky in the Tchaikovsky.

Each excerpt is preceded by a spoken introduction, usually several minutes long, by each of the singers. These are really quite well done, setting the scene and explaining its psychology as well as talking in some cases about the musical features. My only complaint about the introductions is that they are not banded separately from the arias themselves, so that if one doesn't want to see the introduction one has to use the fast forward function of your player.

For a collection of 'bleeding chunks' this is actually quite well done. Highlights are hard to point out; there's not a weak performance in any of the selections. Several of the singers were new to me. Orla Boylan, who sings Tatiana's aria, is an Irish soprano with a lush voice. And her Onegin is sung by a stunningly good (and handsome) young baritone, Vladimir Glushchak. Lensky is sung by Michael König in a honeyed tenor. The dates of these recordings are not noted but one senses that they were done, most of them anyhow, within the past 5-10 years. Sound is generally good as is the photography.

Sound: PCM stereo; Picture format: 4:3 or 4:3 letterbox; Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish; TT=154mins; Region: 0 (worldwide)

Scott Morrison"